• Sprint announced its $39.99 Connection Plan for Corporate Liable accounts, providing 500 MB of data monthly – two to 10 times what Verizon and AT&T, respectively, offer for a similar price, according to Sprint. The plan is available with all devices in the Mobile Broadband device portfolio, including the Novatel Wireless MiFi 2200.
• Boost Mobile, the prepaid division of Sprint, announced the availability of its flagship Motorola Stature i9 handset in red. Boost Mobile first introduced the black Stature i9 in February in conjunction with its $50 Monthly Unlimited plan and says it has added a new color to keep up with retail demand.
• Intel Capital has invested $43 million in Japan-based UQ Communications, a provider of WiMAX mobile services. UQ Communications will use the funding to continue the nationwide expansion of UQ WiMAX service in Japan, with the commitment to provide WiMAX coverage to 90 percent of the country by 2012.
• Zain Nigeria and Ericsson have entered a five-year strategic managed services agreement under which Ericsson will operate Zain’s nationwide GSM/W-CDMA networks in Nigeria.
• The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) announced the selection of Bluetooth wireless technology by Continua Health Alliance, an industry coalition of health care and technology companies. Once finalized, Continua will include the upcoming Bluetooth low energy wireless technology specification in Version Two of its Continua Health Alliance Design Guidelines.
• Freescale Semiconductor expanded on its commitment to GSM EDGE wireless networks with the introduction of three high-performance RF power transistors based on laterally-diffused metal oxide semiconductor (LDMOS) technology.
• Alvarion and eASPNet announced the building of a new mobile WiMAX network by Chunghwa Telecom in the northeastern county of Yilan for the local government under the M-Taiwan program. The network built using Alvarion’s 4Motion Mobile WiMAX solution will operate at 2.5 GHz.
• Avago Technologies is introducing a new series of miniature fully matched WiMAX and Wi-Fi power amplifier modules for mobile and fixed wireless data applications. Avago’s new MGA-2xx03 series of PA modules feature a compact 3 mm by 3mm by 1 mm package and are ideal for manufacturers of portable and mobile devices containing WiMAX or high power WiFi links, the company says.
• Yap announced the availability of its Software Development Kit (SDK) for the speech-enablement of iPhone applications. The Yap SDK for the iPhone gives developers an interface to voice-enable existing mobile applications such as e-mail, instant/text messaging, search, social networking, voicemail-to-text and others.
• Glu Mobile is launching the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen game for mobile handsets worldwide.
